Carinthia (province)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Carinthia (Slovene/Croatian Koroška, German Kärnten) is an informal province in the north of Slovenia. It contains the towns of Dravograd, Ravne na Koroškem, Črna, Mežica, Prevalje and Slovenj Gradec. The area is often referred to as Slovene Carinthia in English to distinguish it from the neighbouring Austrian federal state of Carinthia.

[edit] History

Carinthia was settled by Slavic tribes around the 6th century. They formed a new people, called Karantanians, and Carinthia became the central part of the duchy of Karantania, the first state of Old Slovenians and also the first stable Slavic state ever. Karantania lost autonomy in the early 9th century when it fell under Frankish power. The Duchy of Carinthia was later controlled by the Habsburgs (1335 - 1918), under the Holy Roman Empire and later Austria-Hungary. It was populated by Austrian-Germans and Slovenes. After World War I military forces of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later renamed Yugoslavia) occupied southern Carinthia. Those parts which are today Slovenian territory were annexed without referendum. However, in the region north of this, the voters in the Carinthian Plebiscite on October 10, 1920 determined that those parts should join the newly founded Republic of Austria. With the break up of Yugoslavia in 1991 the Yugoslav section of Carinthia became a part of independent Slovenia.